> In V6, all I had to do was to put my cursor somewhere on the line and press execute

What? That's not true. In V6, exactly as in V7, you have three different "Run" actions: "Run all", "Run selection" and "Run current query". See the pulldown menu of the run button for shortcuts. You can even customize these shortcuts in Tools > Preferences > Shortcuts. "Run current query" is of course what you ask for above.